Turkish gendarmeries escort one of the 11 fugitive commandos who were involved in a bid to seize President Tayyip Erdogan during a failed coup attempt last month, as he arrives at the police headquarters in Mugla, Turkey, on Monday. However, he said, courts quickly decided against him speaking at the rally.
Advertisement
Ankara, which claimed that USA-based Fethullah Gulen was the mastermind of the coup, has been urging the US, Turkey’s strategic partner, to extradite him from his home in Pennsylvania.
But Tufenkci said despite all this Turkey had managed to control the situation. On Wednesday, he accused the West of siding with terrorism and complained that no European leaders had visited Turkey to express support after the coup.
“We gave the names of the terrorists to Belgium, but they said these people were not terrorists and released them”.
Since the putsch, Erdogan has pursued a relentless crackdown, detaining more than 18,000 people and firing tens of thousands of others, with the latest sweep hitting Turkey’s football association and medical staff at Ankara’s military hospital.
“There must definitely be some among them who were subjected to unfair procedures”, he said in comments published by state-run Anadolu news agency. Turkey also cut off power for almost a week at Incrilik airbase after the coup, endangering U.S. Anti-ISIS operations and concerning senior U.S. policymakers. Erdogan has demanded the US extradite Gulen, but the USA has said any extradition request must be processed through the USA justice system, which is a codified due process.
“Let Italy’s judges deal with the mafia, not my son”, Erdogan said in an interview with Italian news channel Rai News24, warning the issue could affect relations with Rome.
He and three other Turkish lawmakers have been meeting US officials at the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.
Then Dunford, Akar and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass met with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
“If we show pity to these murderers, to these coup plotters, we will end up in a pitiful state”, he said.
Turkey’s football federation meanwhile confirmed it had fired 94 officials including referees and assistant referees. It said the action was taken as a “necessity”, without saying whether those dismissed were suspected of links to the Gulen movement.
“We would like to see America take some serious steps” against Gulen and, while mulling Turkey’s extradition request, “put him in custody or prevent his activities” on USA soil, Kamil Aydin, a lawmaker from the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party, told VOA on Monday.
Turkish authorities detained a number of academics at the military academy in Ankara and issued a series of arrest warrants for doctors.
Advertisement
This article was written by Suzan Fraser and Elena Becatoros from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
